It takes a village
Photo credit: Chad Allen
One
of the great joys I discovered in living with native peoples,
both in Panama and Ecuador, was the beauty of young people
raised by a village.
In
a tribe, your child is everyone's child and the kids
are never short on love -- whether giving or receiving.
These kids were relentless in their curiosity of us,
and no matter where we went we always had a willing
entourage.
We
waited out the rains playing football with these kids
in Arajuno, the town where the dirt road into
the jungle ends. A group of angry Quechua Indians had
attacked a local home in response to a political dispute
only days earlier, but these young ones were as excited
to meet us as we were to meet them.
From
here we took a single-engine plane to the jungle airstrip
in Nemompade.
